The ghost of Rene Levesque has returned. Quebec separatism is alive and on the march on Parliament Hill and in Quebec City.
Quebec separatists cling to referencing the Royal Proclamation of 1763 as seminal in justifying their grievances. In actuality, that Proclamation dealt with all of the colonies and territories that France surrendered to England after its defeat in the Seven Year’s War. The lands transferred included Prince Edward Island, Cape Breton Island, all of what is known today as Ontario and Quebec, the Great Lakes Basin, all uncolonized lands east of the Mississippi, the Florida peninsula and a Caribbean island.
The Proclamation created 4 colonial governments - East Florida, West Florida, Grenada and Quebec - and established their boundaries. It consolidated and set aside for First Nations those lands which had been aligned with both England and France. In a key provision, free land plots within the new colonies were to be provided to any retiring soldier who decided to settle there. The problematic issue, that still rankles with the descendants of Les Filles du Roy, was the decree that the rules of governing authority, property management, common and criminal laws were to be similar for all governments and colonies. They were to be based on the laws of England. Considering the scope of the Proclamation, the overall intent made sense at that time. Unhappily, it was both punitive and unworkable in Quebec
And so reversals were made in the subsequent Quebec Act of 1774. Initially, Quebec Roman Catholics had been barred from any government appointments or employment (as in Ireland and England). This was reversed. This included restoring the right of French speaking Catholics to vote and hold public office. The France-based seigneurial form of property management and administration was reinstated, having been previously changed to the English feudal system with freehold tenures. French common laws were now permitted in legal matters as well as English common laws (whichever worked best) although French criminal law remained excluded.
Insofar as the boundaries of Quebec are concerned, separatists ignore the Constitution Act of 1791 wherein Quebec was divided into the colonies of Upper Canada (Ontario) and Lower Canada (Quebec) each of which was granted separate legislative bodies but later reunited in creating Canada as a country. It also gave women in Lower Canada who owned property the right to vote.
So let us first thank the Prime Minister for not allowing the Parti Quebecois to dictate his policies and programs as the NDP has done until recently. And let us, in Alberta, not go down the path of constitutional separatism in lock step with the Quebec independence movement. Let us rather recruit a closer constitutional partnership with Ontario and show Quebecers that Canada is where they belong.
